Poem storyboard

I went with idea number 9 on my previous blog. Boy with a camera, taking loads of photographs and wishing he was with his friend. All us 4 wrote our own storyboards and decided to end up with mine.

We all took key words from the poem such as isolated, cold weighs hard, dark clouds begin to gather, quiet surroundings, open space, wavy grass, sheep wonder aimlessly. I took these words, placed them in the order of the poem and wrote a story.

"Isolated like the emotions I have held for many years.

The cold weighs hard on my bones.

As the dark clouds begin to gather,

Quiet surrounds the air.

The rural space echoes with stillness.

The picturesque image engraved in my mind.

Like a single tree embedded in a field,

The wavy grass hangs around to help ease the loneliness it feels.

The sheep wander aimlessly in this desolate sphere."

(Isolate time) Pictograme spinning thing (eduard Muybridge)

Spinning slowly and gets faster, like a rolling film, of pictures of a boy taking loads of pictures, and old pictures of him and his friend/s going out doing activities + having fun. Spins even faster and fades into the boys face waking up suddenly.. 

(cold weighs hard) eyes wide open as he lies on his back (camera angle birdseye view close up on face) and suddenly gets up and reaches for his camera. On the background of his room he has loads of pictures up on his wall of old memories and friends and where they used to play. (long wide camera)

Feels he has to go out and take more pictures (dark clowds begin)

(quiet surrounds)  goes sets his tripod in the middle of a forest/woods and sets it to self timer, then he goes and plays with the scenery infront of the tripod, dances around etc. (rural place stillness)  (long wide camera)

 .. (picturesque image) ..

 (single tree in field) sets up tripod faceing tree with wheel on it, sets it to self timer and plays on the tree. (long wide camera)

(wavey grass) the boy walking through fields hands reaching out to the long wavey grass (or look over and come up with something different/similar

(Ease the loneliness) reminiscing through camera pictures, (camera angle from behind/above his head)

(sheep wander aimlessly) playing football etc.

(desolate shere) camera breaks and a ghostly figure of his friend that died appears…

It's about a boy whose friend has died, but we don't know this. He feels isolated and lonely, and his camera has almost replaced his lost friend. It has loads of pictures of those two and he takes it everywhere he goes. He visits previous places where they've played together and had photos together. He eventually drops the camera, which breaks, and you get the sense his friend leaves the camera as it breaks. And only then you realise the story is a sad one about him wishing his friend was still around. 

Ideas for poem

1. view a subject in lonliness/isolation, show a sense of time progression
2. grey skies, sped up clips - subject struggling for warmth
3. society continues/ ignores subject
"dark clouds begin to gather"
4. cut to dream scene, tree and field.
5. focus shot, blades of grass that focus to the tree. subject looking at it/ sitting near it.
6. prisoner who wishes to escape both their prison and society
7. could end on a note of realisation
8. the tree could be something the prisoner sees outside of the cell window, perhaps poster of old man flashing back to previous life
9. story on photographer + his camera.

the camera being the main subject and the photographer as its understudy
mystery photographer, find out more about him through the camera, through its history and 'cold' images.

Poem - with Wiz Joel & Tim

Zenam Bi

Isolated like the emotions I have held for many years.
The cold weighs hard on my bones.
As the dark clouds begin to gather,
Quiet surrounds the air.
The rural space echoes with stillness.
The picturesque image engraved in my mind.
Like a single tree embedded in a field,
The wavy grass hangs around to help ease the loneliness it feels.
The sheep wander aimlessly in this desolate sphere.

initial thoughts:

negative imagery

dark portrayal

emotionally detatched from sociaty 

apocalypse

end of the world

isolation/lonliness

withdrawn

lonely

secluded

sadness

time

perception

cold

escape

general public/masses 

prisoner

freedom

dream

realisation

Future Shorts

Missed opportunities, theres nothing more in life than regretting a missed opportunity. The first time i watched this i felt his pain and could see how much he was suffering. This inspires me to take each opportunity i pass by every day and grab it with both hands. Never leave myself just satisfied and always chase the goal

Adverts & Influences

For our next project we will have to create our own films, I'm just looking at adverts that i appreciate the filming of and potentially take ideas from all of them, and interprat them in my own way.

This is the PEN Story in stop motion. 60.000 pictures were shot, developed 9.600 prints and shot over 1.800 pictures again with no post production! It was inspired by "A wolf loves pork", from Taijin Takeuchi and directed by Peter Göltenboth

An amazing 6 minute short film for Johnnie Walker whiskey featuring Robert Carlyle walking the Scottish highlands recounting, in full detail, the story of how the Scottish farmer turned his product into the world famous brand it is today. Other than the great story, it was filmed in one continuous shot. It took Robert 40 tries to finally get it right. It was directed by Jamie Rafn.

Lurpak's kitchen odyssey has been picked up a silver lion at Cannes as well as drawing in notable press from Shots and Campaign. It was directed by Martin Krejci.

Joel Simon

I picked up on two things whilst reading a small interview with Joel, and i picked up on two Q + As.

• What do you do for inspiration:
•  
• Like everyone else. I watch DVDs (and all the extra features and commentaries), read books, chat to people, surf the net until my eyes hurt, doodle and drink strong coffee.
• 
  

I always wonder myself where people get their inspirations from. I can watch tons and tons of videos, look through photographers images and clearly like many things i see but don't feel inspired. Until i lay down in bed, look up at my wall, and an idea will spring to mind. I don't believe that you can only go and look for inspiration, i am a strong believer of inspiration finding you.

• Have you any tips for new comers and beginners:
•  
• I always advise beginners to try to do a bit of everything, every task in animation, then to discern which aspect of animation is the most appealing... is it writing the story, conceptualizing, or the technical aspect like staging scenes, lighting, or is it pure animation- creating expressions out of models, or modeling.

I bang my head against a wall 50 times a day questioning myself all different types of things like, am i good enough to become a professional? Where does my profession lie? I am 20 why can't i create a masterpiece that will give me a million views on youtube? But i am just at the beginning of my career, infact i haven't even started. So these questions at times may seem important but on a day to day basis it's irrelevant. I am studying film games and animation for a reason, and should believe what i want to do will find it's way when i am ready.

http://www.anim8stopmotion.com/interview.php?id=5 - The rest of the interview.



In 2003 he established Flickerpix Ltd with an aim of producing top-notch character animation for all ages. Joel directed children’s series Buska & Barney for UTV; comedy series On The Air for BBC, numerous animated TV commercials and more shorts like the Bombay-based Horn OK Please (15 international awards to date, IFTA for Best Animation 2007).

In 2008, Flickerpix became part of the Waddell Media Group. The studio has broadened its portfolio by producing animation in a variety of new animation techniques, sometimes combining CG, motion graphics and traditional illustrations. Joel is currently the creative director of Flickerpix.

This mixture of techniques was used on the 15 part BBC series Days Like This, which brought to life ordinary people’s personal testimonies of an extraordinary day in their lives. These two clips below are 2 which i enjoy very much, along with Kris Kelly's Blue Chopper. I didn't realise that Kris was part of the animating team for 'Days Like This' and Joel Directed and produced.

Kris Kelly

I can't really find out too much about Kris Kelly over the net, i found his Linkedin along with various parts of his work. This one video really touched me on a personal note. I'm very close with my own brother who infact is 2-3 years younger than me and i'd categorise him as one of my closest friends. If i'm in need of any help he will be the one to offer it to me. I was very short on money, on a couple of occasions, and he's been extremely willing to help me out and this clip of the kids brother giving him what he had, to keep his younger brother happy was very inspiring. I'm lucky enough to have a brother like that.

http://vimeo.com/user2674861

Story Board & Final character: Curley

Useful books

I had purchased a couple of books at the beginning of the course, Digital Animation by Andrew Chong, The Fundamentals Of Film-Making by Jane Barnwell, and a couple of others. The one which so far has helped me and I used as a reference is Animation from pencils to pixels by Tony White'. It has been recomeneded by Roy Disney, and it's about classical techniques for digital animators.. such as myself.

I needed help and some guidance for drawing my character and this book helped make it a lot easier.
He also had a very useful section on concept and environment design.

Colour Studies

Looking at loads of different colour studies, basing some colors on other famous bears such as Winnie The Pooh! And Yogi Bear. As much as I all of them and feel they could all work in their own ways, I will be choosing the one that stands out most for my characters criteria and match his personality.

Completion of Curley!

I found it hard to create the side view of my character, it took a lot of time and patience to finally get it as accurate as i felt i possibly could.

After growing some confidence in my own drawings for my character, i felt i could move on from the angry intimidating look and show his charming side.

Baloo! Ken Anderson

Ken Anderson was an art director, writer and animator at Walt Disney Animation Studios. Anderson was a key player in some of the most well - known animated films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwards, Pinocchio, One Hundred and One Dalmations, and my faveourite out the lot based on Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle book

These are two of Andersons Sketches of Baloo, who eventually became the famous loveable bear in the jungle book.

Anderson designed all the characters in the jungle book film production. You can see why he was chosen, just these two sketches u automatically feel emotionally attached to it. 'Why's he holding this boy upside down and just laughing? Why's he scratching his back ? ooww that looks really itchy' and almost makes you interact with the quick cartoon image.

Environment and Elevations

 'The Shed' is Curley's chill out zone. At the back of the garden he has his playstations and xbox, comfortable couches, peaceful no-one disturbs him. There is a stoned path that leads from the shed back to the house.
Behind the shed is a forest full of trees.

This drawing below is the elevation, from the perspective of the diagonal angle, you can see pretty clearly the size of the shed. 

The two pictures below is what is inside to the left of the shed, where the TV is, and to the right is where the huge couch lies.

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Efrem Giovanni Bravo Partible...

AKA Van Partible. Other than his Filipino descent, Van and i shared a tiny aspect of background in childhood art. We both always used to copy drawings and artwork from comic books. After college, he then decided to peruse animation, something which also interests myself. Partible then went on to create Johnny Bravo.

I grew up watching Johnny Bravo religiously

Bud Luckey

William 'Bud' Luckey, best known for his character design's for Toy Story, Toy Story 2,  Toy Story 3, A Bug's Life, Monsters inc, Finding Nemo, Cars, Up, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille. Such a talented artist, cartoonist, animator, singer, musician, composer and voice actor. Described by Pixar and Disney's Creative Executive Vice President John Lasseter as one of the true unsung heroes of animation.

Luckey started out as a character designer, joined Pixar and was heavily involved as a stroyboard artist and animator for the first Toy Story. He designed Woody as a cowboy being inspired by Edgar Bergens charactor Charlie McCarthy. It just so happened, Woody's owner Andy Davis was named after Luckey's son. His surname came from a near by Town in California called Davis.

Luckey designed and wrote a short called Boudin'. It was shown as the opening cartoon before The Incredibles where he also composed the music and lyrics, and sang and performed the banjo for the soundtrack.

Bud is a huge inspiration for me, he was 69 years old when he created Boudin' and got nominated for an academy award for best short film. Now i'm undecided what path i would like to go down further into this course but just by looking at his drawings and designing of his characters. I feel it is helping me get the best out of Curley and will be attempting to incorporate his style, by using long and short camera angles in my flick book stop motion animation.

Hanna-Barbera Inspiration

Hanna-Barbera has been, i'd say the major influence in my life to date. From the day i can remember i based my life around Cartoon Networks schedule. Shows like Wacky Races, Top Cat, Tom and Jerry, The Smurfs, Scoobie-Doo, Charlotte's Webb, The Flintstones, and so many more.. It was what I lived for!
I'd be up before school watching whichever cartoon was on at the time, leave for school, come back and watch it until i had to go to bed. It still brings out the child in me.

As a student studying their creations, I can really appreciate and admire the quality and high standards of work William Hanna and Joseph Barbera bought to our televisions. Even with todays softwares and realistic looking characters, i still find the simple drawings and tones much more enjoyable to watch and recreate.

I feel i can take Hanna and Barbera's work and incorporate it's style two-tonned drawings and base my character on the type of character they may have come up with if I'd given them the task of drawing up my character sheet.

Character Design

I'd drawn down a couple of bears trying to find out what my character would look like, looking at the character sheet i wrote up and attempting to base him on that. I felt very strongly towards the big fella in the middle on the right he had a big connection and fitted the criteria.

Famous Well Known Animated Bears

Beorn: Lord of the Rings

Beorn was a berserker warrior in the book Lord of the Rings, with great strength, who could turn into a great black bear. It was always worth considering a man turning into a bear if i'm looking at an anthropomorphic character.

In human form, Beorn appears as a tall, black-haired man with huge arms and a great beard. He could also communicate with bears. Similar to the kind of character I'd like to create, but only as a bear. It's a little to sci-fi for me I'd rather keep it a bit more simple and a little less detailed.

Mixing and Matching Ideas

Throwing in a couple of mood boards together to help find my inspiration for my 8ft bear.

I start putting a couple of drawings down, looking through the internet at images. Practising my drawing skills at the same time as broaden my mind, what does Curley look like? What makes him intimidating? What attracts all the girls to him? The proportion, size, everything about him. 

Bears in Alcohol Advertising

Over the last however many years, there have been a couple of bears to famously step across our TVs to advertise alcoholic beverages.

Bundaberg Polar Bear used widely In Bundaberg Rum Ads in Australia.

George, the bear in the British Hofmeister Beer commercials of the 1980s. "For great lager, follow the bear".

Hamm's Beer bear, was a cartoon mascot. Typically the bear would dance around in a while the Hamm's Jingle was playing in the background 'Land of sky blue waters'.

Bears in Video Games

Kuma; Tekken 4

One of the characters from the old classic fighting game Tekken 4, he has many human traits, the way he walks, dances, acts, and definitely looks intimidating!

Ivan the bear; Brutal- Paws of Fury

Grizzly Slash/Crescent Grizzly, a Maverick from Megaman X5 who is designed like a grizzly bear.

HaHA! I love this character! Apparently isn't a fighter against violence, but an overconfident  weapon dealer!... very interesting, and quite an influential looking bear. Can't really see him fitting into an urban area.

Aoashira; Monster Hunter Portable 3D

No comment.. Other than looking at his feet and the texture, i don't think this character makes much sense given the archetype i've chosen. Possibly the height and potential build.

Banjo; Banjo Kazooie

Banjo is a anthropomorphic brown honey bear that looks very friendly, could potentially have a dark side but, more importantly looks like he would fit in more into a civilised world and has many traits of a human. For example he has facial expressions, stands up straight, uses his paws like hands, and can walk and run.

Character Sheet and The start

After comming up with my characters archetype, it started to come together in my mind about stories involving him, exactly what kind of guy he was, his background, family work business, physical description. He is an anthropomorphic. Walks, stands, talks, acts exactly like a human, in a bears body.
Doesn't have much of an educational background, left school at 16- felt he was better off spending his time researching how to make as much money as possible now. Jumping from market to market, making dodgy and dirty deals involving drugs, to selling fake gold and watches making fortunes on the streets, dodging and ducking from peoples hes previously f***ed over and the police.

Everyone in the North London knows Curley, hes a very decent bloke... but behind closed doors is what very few people know about him. Unless you are on his bad side of course! He takes no s***! A proper ladies man, always has managed to pull every woman he wanted whereever he goes but has since calmed down with chatting them up since he got married. A proper born and bread cockny, a massive Tottenham fan living as a youngster virtually on the stadiums door steps so he had no choice but to follow in his fathers footstepts and support the yid arm - like his football teams manager Harry Redknapp, hes a good old 'wheeler dealer'.

His worst habbit, would have to be he gets into too many fights. For people who don't know him, hes extremely intimidating. Every one of his friends and peers look up to him as the gang leader. An absolute gentleman and will look out for his entourage and when big deals come through he will spoil them. Go out on the drink, take a cheeky trip to Amsterdam, he loves to have fun. His goal and motivation? Money, live the glorious life, not get caught, give them family as much as they want and spoil them and just enjoy life living under his own rules.

I'm going to be looking for already famous bears for inspiration on how to design his looks, movement, habitat, and conceptual art and artists to help move forward.

PPP Who Am I

This was our first lecture on personal and professional practise with Brigitte Marsh. Honestly not as bad as i expected. We work on PPP during sixth form so for me it wasn't such a struggle to understand the concept of PPP... But this time it feels that putting my personal and practises into a profession doesn't seem a million years away. And I will actually be involved in the working in this profession in not too long.
I'd say this is obviously where my 11 months of working during my gap year kicks in, who am i and what people perceive of me.

Understanding the different kind of people ill be working with over the next few years, and recognising that some attributes that i think people have could be off, but infact could be as strong as mine.
We looked at Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist who was regarded as an influential thinker, looked deep into personalities and came up with the concept of 'the archetype'; the self, the shadow, both male and female personalities, the persona (the mask we wear- what we want people to perceive from us), the tricksta, the hero, the father, mother and more.

Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother Katherine Cook Briggs developed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator instrument (MBTI) Personality Type Test. The test consisted of us being asked questions and us having to claim which letter best suited the answer we were given which referred to our own lives. There are 16 different MBTI Types, mine happens to be ESTP.

ESTP: result - the mechanics, ready to try anything once!
Flexible and tolerant, they take pragmatic approach focused immediate results. Theories and conceptual explanations bore them - they want to act energetically to solve the problem. Focus on the here and now, spontaneous, enjoy each moment that they can be active with others. Enjoy material comforts and style. Learn best through doing.

I was quite surprised by this result, i really had no what result to expect but i feel its a fair judgement. I always focus on the hear and now, weather that allows me to consider the consequences or not it has it's downfalls, but then i like to think everything we do in life has it's consequences (good or bad). I agree to a strong extent i learn best through doing, and it's rare for me to not lose concentration through theories and conceptual explanations!

'Your work - Life balance'
I was asked to mark a table out of 100 for each one of these;

Health & well being: 65 - could be better, fitness levels are terrible, have sore/weak knees, would like more tone, but could be a lot worse.

Achievements: 60 - getting into uni was major for me, but other than that i don't feel i've achieved much.

Contentment:

Work - Career: 80 - Over the last few years i've managed to earn some sort of money, had many different experiences, and i'm settled for the next few years and heading into the right direction.

Friendship: 90 - have many friends, now spread out all over the country, cant trust everyone but found the people i can trust.

Security: 90 - don't exactly live with body guards and alarms, but very rarely worried about my security.\

Energy: 70 - depending on sleep/stress levels/ how i feel about myself.

Self-esteem: 75 - i've got enough belief and self esteem and people in my life to help me get through problems, but varies when i'm not striving in life.

Fun & recreation: 80 - i like to have fun, but its hard when the lack of money and the worried look on the mothers face plays on your mind 24/7.

Home- Family: 95 - never been what i would regard as a 'close family' but again it varies - i no whatever i can count on my parents, brother and sister.

Relationships: ?? - wasn't sure where i stood on relationships. Always wanting what i can't get, but it's'  never enough.

Finance: ?? - It's low, very low.

First Lecture with Gary Barker - on Lectures... and Transmedia

So apparently taking notes down is very important during a lecture, so i can blog about it later in my own time... not my definition of fun but such as life.
Gary told us taking down notes is like an taking down evidence, well thank you LA Noire for teaching me how to take down evidence. GETTING TO THE POINT!

Transmedia
Transmedia production is as old as human beings, stories have been the content of our lives and their narratives are played in a different media as they're invented, then put down on paper and printed.
From oral tradition, to song, to painted image, to sculpture, to written text, to printed page to photographs, to film to games and so on...
Different media is used for different things, computer programmes for example; Myer is used to create better effects with hair than using illustrator or photoshop.
When the CD came out, games and game development changed. Allowing the structure of games to change for example, GTA heading down one path, will determine one route of the game you will end up taking and CD's allow you to do that.
Marshall Mcluhan wrote a book 'The Medium is the Message'. He tells us that all media is an extension of us, electronic media is an extension of the ear and brain. I think message he's attempting at getting across is that our imagination is a form of media and the way we perceive it. Actually getting it down on paper, or computer, is due to what we hear see and imagine,

Looney Tunes

An absolute legend that brings back so many childhood memories. Back in the day's when Cartoon Network was all i knew of. Foghorn Leghorn. Happened to be watching him recently and caught a clip, where he ruffles through his pouch in his stomach of feathers to take out an object. It's an idea i felt i could incorporate somehow with my bear character - which when finished designing, i will be able to take that pouch from foghorn and experiment with it.

Brainstorming & Archetype

I'd taken a couple pictures of bears and after the Leeds City Museum, i think i'd decided that was the direction i wanted to head in. A bear, with human characteristics. Why not? It's been done on The Cleveland Show. Except I'm looking at a different type of bear to a huge friendly neighbour dressed up in a shirt and tie with no shoes.

An archetype: A universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behaviour, refers to a generic version of a personality.

I started to broaden, what felt like an extremely small part of my mind that was working at the time, and come up with.. a fairly big bear, potentially 8 ft. tall. A dodgy bloke, a drug dealer, involved with fraud for many years. Lovely guy, living in the suburbs, likes his wide variety of cars. Owns a warehouse where actually many of his dealing takes place. Born and raised in N1 area Hackney. Has a lovely wife with a couple of kids, he himself will be based probably in his early- late 40's.

Swiftly moving on

I struggled to put down on paper any sort of idea i had in mind. I jotted down a spidergram of a potential few ideas for my character - it was difficult to come up with anything other than a couple words so i focused on my drawing skills of cartoon characters and some of my images i took from the trips. Using both primary and secondary research, books, internet and my images.

Trip 2; The Royal Armouries

The Royal Armouries... urmmm, if asked to describe it? Guns, guns, armoury - which a lot of people seemed to know a fair bit about... and more guns. I went in knowing nothing, but came out with some more ideas... that my character was NOT going to be involved in any sort of world war.

Trip 1; Leeds City Museum 20/09

Leeds City Museum... I'd never heard of it, and in all honestly couldn't tell you one fact about it - But lucky for me all i needed was to find some inspiration, which is fair to say it placed a couple of ideas for my character in mind.  I felt what worked best was the idea of my character being an anthropomorphic - an animal with human characteristics, walk on two feet, has a pair of hands 2 arms can talk.